General Submission Guidelines

We look forward to reading your work!

updated July 25, 2016

We’re looking for well-crafted, compelling fiction written with a strong voice. Tell us a story.

We’re open to many genres including, but not limited to, literary, science fiction, speculative, gothic, historical, flash, and fairytales. We do not publish fanfiction or erotica.

We’re open for submissions at the beginning of each month:

December 1st — 10th
January 1st — 10th
February 1st — 10th
March 1st — 10th
April 1st — 10th…you get the picture!

Stories received outside of the submission period will not be read. We invite you to submit them again during the next open period.

We accept up to 14 stories per submission period. For your work to be considered, please follow these guidelines:

1. We use Submittable to process all submissions. Please click here.
2. Please send no more than 2 submissions per month.
3. Include a 100-word bio in your cover letter.
4. Our standard maximum length is 5,000 words (20 minute read). Exceptions will be made at the discretion of our editorial team.
5. We do not accept previously published stories. This includes pieces published in traditional print journals, on your personal blog, or in any other online space.
6. Simultaneous submissions are fine. Please notify us immediately if your piece has been accepted elsewhere.
7. Your submission should be properly formatted (please double space!) and free of typos. Need an example? Click here.

Please allow 2 weeks for our response. Once your piece has been accepted, we will work with you to make sure it’s the best it can be before it appears in Made Up Words. No significant changes will be made without your participation and approval; copyediting will be made at the discretion of our team.

Accepted stories will be published during the month after they were received, i.e. stories accepted in December will appear in January and so on. We publish a new piece each Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday.

If you have questions, please email veronica@dacunha.global. Here are other links that you may find useful:

• Sign up for free, 23-day access to Made Up Words and our sister publications Sobremesa and Wait, What? on daCunha.
• Learn all about daCunha, including our plan (scroll down a bit) to #paythecreators.
• Check out our Q + A for creators.

Thank you for your interest!